Introductory address on the study of anthropology : delivered before the Anthropological Society of London, February 24th, 1863 / by James Hunt.

  • James Hunt
Date:
1863
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address on the study of anthropology : delivered before the Anthropological Society of London, February 24th, 1863 / by James Hunt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    commentary. Ethnology, as now understood, has quite outgrown the narrow basis on which it was started. We must, therefore, enlarge and deepen our foundations; collect a range of facts, and extend our sphere of observation, before we begin to fight some of the most po- pular ethnological questions of the day. Whatever might have been the value of Dr. Prichard’s works in their generation, it is certain that is no little disgrace to our science that these works are still the text-books of the day. It is true, however, that neither in France nor Germany are the textbooks on this subject of a much more satis- factory character. All systematic works have one fault in common; that they leave the great foundations of the science entirely based on conjecture, while they discuss subjects which are at present of little consequence, and only tend to produce party warfare. An attempt has been made to divide all ethnologists into two parties, mono- genists and polygenists: and each party is supposed to be bound to support the side to which they may be espoused. Such a state of things is most unfortunate for science, and no progress can be made until we give up such fruitless skirmishing. If we take a glance at any of the great physical questions connected with Man, we find that nearly all is speculation—much, simple mythology. If we go to Borneo, we get the myth of the creation of man from the dust of the earth, and that woman was made from the great toe of the man ; and the Thibetians believe that mankind descended from the ape.*' Both hypotheses are very imaginative, and perhaps have about the same amount of actual facts to support them. What we know is, that transformation of species has yet to be proved. No one (except Agassiz and his confreres) will deny the possibility of the descent of man from the ape by some unknown law of development: but the admission does not in the least give any countenance to such being at all proved by existing data. Oken’s origin of man from the scum of the sea belongs to the same category of assumptions, and the speculations of Reichenbachf also require facts to support them. He says, “The soil in which the first man originated was an animal, and his first mother was an animal, and his first nourishment was the milk of an animal.” Very likely this was so ; but we shall want more evidence than this author gives us to accept such a statement for anything more than an hypothesis—supported by presumed analogy, but not by facts. We shall probably see what must have been the la,w of Man’s origin long before we shall be able to * Link, History of Mankind. -t' Uber die Entstehung des Menschen.